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A recent opinion column in WLJ by R-CALF’s Bill Bullard requires a response.
He points out that many younger cattlemen and cattlewomen do not remember when the national Beef Checkoff started. But that is no excuse for misinforming them about the checkoff’s purpose and history.
Bullard has historically been fixated on cattle numbers and cattle operation numbers. He contends that the checkoff should have resulted in higher cattle numbers and higher beef consumption. Because we have lower cattle numbers and consumption, the checkoff was a failure, he contends, and the checkoff money was wasted.
The effect of the widespread drought on cattle numbers has penetrated even the dullest of the public’s minds, even though they are not familiar with weather’s effects on their meat selection. Bullard correctly mentions the much larger carcass production per cow in recent decades, even more in the last decade. We have fewer cows yet increased beef production today. While we need more cattle than we have right now, we don’t need the numbers of the mid-1970s because each cow produces a lot more beef. And those higher producing cows need more grass than the thousand pound cows of bygone eras.
For many years before the checkoff, the beef industry had, year after year, sold more beef for less money. When I came west in the ’70s—remember cattle numbers peaked in the mid-’70s— cattlemen were hotly debating whether should get rid of the Cattle on Feed report. Why? Because they were sick of the report coming out showing increased cattle numbers and market prices going down. We were producing more cattle and beef than the demand required.
Much of that was because of Sen. George McGovern’s report accusing red meat of causing coronary heart disease. We also were improving genetics and meat production by moving away from the short, dumpy cattle of the ’50s and early ’60s that featured poor cutability and yield. Weather in much of the country was more favorable than the drought of the ’50s and cattle numbers had increased.
The Beef Checkoff was a culmination of cattlemen realizing that we ourselves had to do something about our demand problem. Waiting for retailers or packers or restauranteurs was not an option. There were still some who believed that it was someone else’s responsibility to fix demand problems. But eventually, we decided to take the bull by the horns.
The checkoff was not about increasing cattle numbers. We already had more numbers than the market could handle. Profitability for the entire chain was the goal. How? By assuaging human health concerns, by showing them how to cook and save money by doing so, by recipe development, by merchandising assistance to retailers and foodservice, by improving carcass quality and the palatability, consistency and predictability of our product.
Working cooperatively with the other segments of our beef production chain instead of waiting for someone else to do it, we galvanized the industry to improve the situation ourselves. Bullard is fond of reminding people that everything starts at the cow-calf end of the chain. It does. And a lot of the impetus for the checkoff came from those ranchers and farmers seeing their family’s future disappearing and tired of people’s lackluster enthusiasm for beef.
The terrific demand we are enjoying right now didn’t happen easily or overnight. The national Beef Checkoff was a tremendous step forward, but it was not the beginning. Cattlemen’s and cattlewomen’s groups began decades before that collecting dimes to educate consumers about beef. Heck, the National Live Stock & Meat Board started in 1922.
It took major efforts from all segments of the industry, working together, trying not to make things difficult for the next step in the chain, concentrating on what everyone in all segments needed to do to meet consumer wants and desires, to get to where we are now.
Many of those folks who believed in making a living by shorting the people behind them or ahead of them in the chain have disappeared. But the industry has been finding better, objective ways to measure live characteristics that resulted in better product, and finding ways to hit those marks and sharing data with the entire chain.
Bullard’s claim that America’s appetite for beef was stronger before the checkoff than it is now is off the mark. He is just trying to find a new way to damage the checkoff by working with numbers in a misleading way. Relevant numbers: Pounds of beef in 1985: 23.7 billion; in 2025: 26.7 billion. Retail price of beef: 1985: 85 cents; 2025: $8.27.
More beef for more money. — Steve Dittmer, WLJ columnist
(Steve Dittmer is the author of the Agribusiness Freedom Foundation newsletter. Views in the column do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of WLJ or its editorial staff.)
